Formula One was born and bred in Europe when in 1950 a collection of Grand Prize races were aggregated into a formal calendar and a championship for the first time. That inaugural season there were seven rounds all of which were in Europe with the exception of the Indianapolis 500 held at the end of May.
There were 57 different drivers who competed in the championship that year and a total of 30 teams who contested the title, including a number of one car/driver privateers outfits. The drivers for the works Alfa Romeo team were dominant with their supercharged 158 which was an evolution of the successful pre-war 1938 car.
F1 at its inception
At the time only the six European rounds counted towards the title and the Indy500 was run to American AAA regulations, not FIA Formula One regulations, and none of the regular drivers who competed in Europe competed in the 500, and vice versa.
The title came down to a quirk of the scoring with Juan Manuel Fangio losing put to eventual champion Guiseppe “Nino” Farina edging out his Argentine team mate because of his fourth place in Belgium.
Ironically, given the current debate over whether to extend the points paying positions in modern F1, just the top five placed drivers were awarded a score on an 8-6-4-3-2 basis. At the time some teams had drivers airing a car and so the points were split equally between the pair regardless of how many laps they each drove. Only the best four results over the course of the season counted towards the championship and the fastest lap at each event scored an additional 1 world championship point.
For the first decade only the drivers competed for the F1 title, but in 1960 a team championship was introduced which delivered one extra points scoring place down to P6. With only a minor tweak in 1961 where the fastest lap point was dropped, the method of awarding F1 points remained the same until 1991.
FIA address the safety car “mistake” in Miami
F1 world changes dramatically
How the world has changed. 57 drivers, 30 teams and just seven events a year has morphed into 20, drivers, 10 teams and a whopping 24 race calendar which run over ten months of the year, not the original five from May-September.
Now Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei reveals the strategy for pitching race promoters against each other since buying the commercial rights back in 2017. Playing off Barcelona against Madrid raised the fee the Catalan venue was paying from €25m to almost double as the Spanish capital city will pay an eye watering €48m to host the Spanish Grand Prix from 2026 onwards.
Operating close to the capacity 25 races a year provided for in the current Concorde Agreement, Formula One has never been more in demand and the steady growth in demand to host a race has been growing no for some time. F1’s CEO Stefano Domenicali joked last year he had enough interest to promote a 30 annual event calendar if he so wished.
Yet Liberty Media are continuing in the tradition set by Bernie Ecclestone before them, of leveraging promoters who cry poverty, by playing them off against each other. This means to grow the pie, the sport no longer needs to keep adding more races, it simply is putting its prices up and up as each circuit’s contract comes to an end.
F1 driver claims 2025 team lineups to be settled in “a couple of weeks”
Liberty admit to “playing” race hosts off against each other
Greg Maffei now admits to investors, “For a long time, it was perceived that the growth and promotion would come from incremental races,” explained Maffei on a conference call with Wall Street analysts earlier this week.
“We obviously went from 18 or something to up to this 24 level, which is where we do not anticipate growing any more races.
“But, it actually creates a great incentive scarcity, to be able to play promoters off against each other – and not to try and take advantage of them but just given the amount of demand we have, both among fans to attend and among promoters to host an event.
“We’ve been able to find attractive pricing and good uplifts.”
Magnussen race ban: Haas new F1 driver to partner Hulk
Different approaches to maximising revenue
The fans who attend the races may beg to disagree with Maffei because at the end of the day it is they who pay the hosting fee when they purchase tickets for the F1 events. Each circuit has gone about raising their revenue in different ways. Silverstone has increased its capacity year on year and could see a whopping 500,000 in attendance at the British Grand Prix this year.
The recent Miami Grand Prix had a record crowd in 2024 as 275,000 flooded through the gates over the Sprint weekend and were treated to competitive action each day on track. Yet the prices in Miami compared to Silverstone explain the difference in approach, with a lobster roll costing $120 at the famous “fake” marina and beach club.
With no expansion of the number of events now planned each year, the raft of wannabe F1 hosts will create the inevitable. The more traditional European venues in particular are now under threat as Domenicali says.
“There continues to be huge interest and demand for our races around the world. Our focus is to maintain the right strategic balance of locational opportunities while being clear we currently believe a 24-race schedule is the optimal number of events.
“What you have seen and what we have seen happening in the course of the last years, because of the strong demand of our products and because of the standards we are asking and working together with our promoter, we are seeing everything going up in terms of the quality of the events of course economically but for both the promoter and our side,” he added.
“And the strong demand we are receiving just shows really the strategy is right now.
“The other point is the balance between the different continents that are requesting the different grands prix.
“I would say in the next couple of years, I’m expecting to see and we expect to announce also some new venues that that could be very attractive to grow the business of Formula 1,” the Italian concluded.
US court action on ‘cartel’ F1
Longer term hosting contracts
The new F1 race hosting contracts signed over the past few seasons have been noticeably for longer than was historically the case. Australia recently secured their place on the calendar though until 2037 and Bahrain which joined in 2004 has just extended to 2036.
Silverstone, the venue for the very first F1 Grand Prix in 1950, is now locked in until 2034 and Qatar together with Hungary have long term commitments until 2032.
The established favourites of Singapore at night and Japan (now moved to a date which coincides with the iconic spring blossom) have five yers each remaining on their contracts and the newly signed up Madrid will run until 2035.
Yet there are eight events facing uncertainty with agreements due to expire over the next 12 months. These include some of F1’s most iconic circuits racing concerns amongst fans that these legendary tracks will be lost from F1.
Steiner paints bleak picture for Red Bull
Historic tracks under threat
Currently in negotiations are Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, Monza in Italy and Zandvoort in the Netherlands remains to be negotiated, prompting speculation about a possible regional rotation scheme between events.
Germany and France once stalwarts of the F1 calendar are now lost to the current era, but there remains a clause in the Concorde agreement which ensures at least eight races each season are conducted in the European heartlands. Of course this wouldn’t stop F1’s owners from blurring the lines as did Bernie Ecclestone when he introduced the inaugural race in Baku as the “European Grand Prix.” Of course Baku is the wrong side of the Ural Mountains to be counted as European, but who really cares about such definitions?
The races currently coming to the end of their contracts are almost inevitably going to be awarded F1 events going forward, but probably on a rotating basis. Although for a brief period of time, there are no new imminent race promoters being discussed as a matter of course.
However F1 goes about growing revenue, it is the fans who stump up the majority of the financing. Back in 1993 when Alain Prost returned from his first retirement, a three day general admission ticket cost £52 which today adjusted for inflation would be £107.77.
Yet three days at Silverstone this year with General Admission only starts from £349 and for the paddock club entry it is several thousand pounds. Bernie Ecclestone’s business plan for F1 included ringing every last penny from the internal broadcasters to grow revenues. Having reached saturation point, its now the promoters and ultimately the fans who are paying more and more to watch the sport they love.
Hulkenberg reveals details of Audi deal
Red Bull earthquake: Insider says there’s “more to come
Formula 1 racing, team cohesion and stable leadership are as crucial as the cutting-edge technology that propels the cars themselves. However, recent developments suggest that Red Bull Racing, a dominant force in the sport, may be facing further internal challenges that could shake its foundations.
The potential exit of key personnel, starting with the departure of legendary designer Adrian Newey, and now possibly sports director Jonathan Wheatley, points to a deeper unrest within the team.,, READ MORE
